What happened this week: This week was again a quiet one. As already indicated last week have Asian tanners mostly decided, that they will not return to the market before the end of September in any significant volume. This might be a mixture or sufficient inventories, cash flow problems and uncertainty about prices and volumes of future leather orders, but the consequence is, that cow sellers loose confidence in the market after the holidays. So, the only business left were some of the regular sales of bulls to the European tanning industry and some spot interest for wetblue items, were incoming leather orders needed to be filled with prompt available material. In general the enthusiasm about the business starts to fade and so also this year is a classic how things can be misinterpreted over the summer. It is the ever repeating hope, that business is going to be immediately strong after the return from the holidays. At the end tanners are basically always covered for the weeks after the holidays

and furniture orders and production get back to full speed not before the end of September. In shoe leathers the situation was a bit better, despite bad news from the sector in general. One of the largest German shoe retail organisation including the Salamander shops filed for bankruptcy during the week. Although it is said operations will continue for the time being it is always creating confusions,  disruptions and  the cash-flow down the supply chain will also be influenced. Also the names of Tuscany tanneries closing are finally circulating the trade. Despite all this, most of the interest seen during the week  came from shoe tanners in Europe and the Middle/Far East. Some spot business could be concluded without being of any significant size. Prices for male hides were able to hold their own, while - without having any sales done - we would call the cow market under pressure also in view of the weaker USD towards the end of the week. At the end we continue to be driven by the leading markets in the Americas were prices are also said

to be slowly eroding. The price has taken over the command again in the mainstream products and everyone feels the same now, that despite positive impression about the demand for leather in general tanners fell confident and also are economically forced to wait for bargains. With the growing mass production of global products the return for most hides is not anymore determined by the fine tuning and optimization of selections, but by simple cost and volume calculations.   The kill: The kill took a bit of a break this  week. High prices for cattle and the beautiful weather slowed numbers down again. However, slaughter is normal for the year and we are now in the normal cycle of increasing kills. What do we expect? As many in the trade realize more price pressure is now building on the hide types which find today their home predominantly in Asia. The weaker USD is also weighing on calculations and so we would not be surprised if prices for cows in € beginn to fall. Bulls might hold, but if cows are adjusting to new levels the rest will need to follow eventually.